Show me a person who is on a diet and I will show you a person who is desperate for something else, yet he doesn’t know how to get it and starts running like a mad man on the path most traveled… with the hope that if everybody is walking on it, this means that it is the right one and it will lead to the way we want to feel and perceive ourselves. Ask whoever you wish – why he first started following a diet. At first, many people will rush to answer “because I wanted to live healthy.” But while they are saying those words, in their mind there is a thought that rushes, reminding that there is nothing healthy about constantly living with the idea that you are deprived. There is nothing healthy in spending half of your day with the thought that you are really hungry and that you are feeling tired and you do not have desire to do much, because your lunch didn’t bring you satiety, but it is still not time for your next meal and even though the hunger, you need to show “will and motivation” and endure.
There is nothing healthy in excluding whole food groups, one by one and turning nutritious and delicious food in something tasteless that is limited to 5-6 foods, which you rotate all year round, trying to convince yourself that you are doing it in the name of your goal to be healthy.
After all these thoughts run through your mind, the honest answer will probably be:
“I started following a diet, because I wanted to be attractive and I wanted others to like me.”
“I started following a diet, because I wanted to lose weight and to feel more confident.”
“I started following a diet because I didn’t wanna be ashamed, when I wear swimsuit.”
“I started following a diet, because I didn’t want to always be the one holding the largest piece of cloth in the shop, yet asking if they have just one size larger.”
“I started following a diet, because other people around me ate like this and I didn’t want to be the different one.”
The answers can continue to infinity, but in the essence of them is always the need to feel – significant, secure and loved.
The answers can continue to infinity, but in the essence is always hidden the fear that we are not enough and that we do not deserve.
Am I wrong?
Didn’t you start a diet, because you thought that the way you look right now is the reason somebody denies you, doesn’t accept you and doesn’t love you?
Didn’t you start a diet, because you thought that if you look in a certain way, then others will like you more and thus you would feel more significant?
Why didn’t you start a diet, because you thought that if you were thinner, then you wouldn’t need to be ashamed asking for a larger size of clothes and you hoped that this would bring you some sense of security?
Didn’t you start a diet, because what you used to be before it created you a feeling of not being enough? Didn’t you feel like you do not deserve to wear a certain type of clothes? Didn’t you feel you do not deserve to have the attention and love of others?
I know exactly how you feel and I know that you will need some time. You will need to make some mistakes in your diet and go through the enchanted circle, where instead of taking care of your body, you punish it. You will go through it all, before you get tired of treating yourself like that. Before you get tired of that constant fight and before you realize that what you actually need is a diet that will become a lifestyle. A diet that won’t enslave you, but it will instead set you free. A diet that won’t deprive you, but it will really make your body energetic and full of vitality. A diet that you will discover when you really want to live healthy and when the motive of health, and not the need for significance, security or love, neither the fear that you are not enough, is your driving force.
A lot of people repeat the same behavior and it seems as if they are trying to get rid of it, yet they are constantly stuck and they make it a habit, just because they do not realize what the need that drives the behavior is.
A person is not driven by the behavior itself, but by the need that is hidden behind it. In order to change the habit, you need to find the need that the habit satisfies and then find something else that will satisfy it. You need to find something that will satisfy the need, without being destructive for you, your body, health, life and dreams.
Everything we do and everything we don’t like and we don’t want to be a part of our life, could leave pretty easy – only if we take the time to realize what is hidden behind it and what is the driving motive. Instead, we are slipping on the surface of things and we never get to the essence of them.
So many women are so obsessed with their diet and they desperately try to get rid of the obtrusive thoughts what, when and why to eat, but their efforts are focused in the wrong direction. Their efforts push them towards the behavior, they are actually trying to avoid. When we start using the diet as an instrument to satisfy the need for significance, security, love and as an instrument to avoid the fear that we are not enough, then the mind reaches a state of peace and suddenly everything goes in place. Suddenly, the pounds start melting, the appetite regulates and we do everything the right way, without reinforcing it.
Take some time! Sit and ask yourself why you are on a diet. But not a diet that makes you strong, healthy and energetic, but a diet that deprives you and obsesses your life. Be honest! Acknowledge it and reveal what is the need you are trying to satisfy and what is the fear you are trying to avoid. And I promise you that when you find the answer, then you will have a new start and a new opportunity to finally take the right direction and set yourself free from what is exhausting you on a daily basis and what takes you further away from your potential.
